Food, family and memories are as intertwined in the South as if woven on the same thread. At any function we attend, from a party to a wedding to a funeral, we are as likely to talk as much about the food that was there, as we are about why we are gathered. ~Mary Foreman

I'm your cook, not your doctor. ~PAULA DEEN

I found out what the secret to life is: friends. Best friends. ~Ninny Threadgoode

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Somewhere between a soup and stew, all thick and creamy and soothing, this full bodied and flavorful pot of white beans is all due to the ham bone.

Ham Bone Beans

I don't know about the rest of y'all but I sure have had a difficult time getting back into the swing this week. I've been busy enough writing new recipes and even cooking, but it's the post writing part that has me pulling off my best procrastination act this week. For instance, I fully intended to have this recipe up on Monday... and here it is already Wednesday. I had it mostly done, I just kept putting off finishing the final cut and the coding that goes with all this website business.

Anyway, I do hope that you have a nice, meaty ham bone and some chunks of ham frozen from your holiday meal leftovers, just waiting for a great recipe to show up, because these beans are a fantastic way to use them. Soon as I carved up my holiday ham, the bone went directly into the freezer along with 2 big sections of ham, just perfect for beans. I sure love making a pot of beans from a good ham bone on those days when there's a chill in the air.

These beans fall somewhere between a soup and a stew really, all thick and creamy and soothing, like a pot of ham bone beans ought to be. Seriously, this is the absolute best pot of beans and it's got little to do with my skills in the kitchen. The ham bone really is the star.

While slow cookers are great for cooking all sorts of soups, stews and beans, I still love a dish that is slow-stewed, old school style right on the stovetop, something akin to what Grandma might have made, long before such modern conveniences, and store-bought, boxed broths and other nice and handy shortcuts we have available to us today. While I do enjoy those modern conveniences, I kinda like it the old school way of slowly building layers of flavors too. Y'all kinda already knew that about me though, didn't you?

Using the ham bone to create a flavorful stock first, is one of those layers. The addition of a small roux at the end, made using bacon drippings, is yet another. While you can certainly thicken these one pot meals with a bit of a cornstarch slurry added toward the end of a recipe, I've taken to doing a small roux with many of my soups and stews now, and, besides the creaminess I adore, it really does add another bump of flavor to the dish.

Yes, the old school way of making ham bone beans is a process that takes time, and a dish for modern days that is best reduced to weekend cooking for many of us I suppose, but the flavor pay-off is so worth the effort and time, provided you don't try to shortcut it. I hope you put this on your list to try one upcoming chilly weekend.

Soak beans overnight to speed the cooking process. Place ham bone in a large stockpot, along with the remaining stock ingredients, cover with water plus another 2 inches. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 1 hour. Strain, reserving the bone and stock; discard vegetables. Once cooled, pick off any meat from the bone, reserving the meat and discarding the bone. Reserve all of the stock but set aside 1 cup of the stock separate to use for the gravy.

Heat the oil in the bottom of the pot and add the chopped onion, celery and carrot; cook over medium until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cook another minute. Rinse and sort through the beans, add to the pot, along with the reserved, strained stock.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, in a separate small skillet, cook the bacon until lightly crisped, remove and chop, reserving the bacon drippings. Add the bacon, ham and corn, if using, to the beans; simmer for 30 minutes longer.

Warm the bacon drippings, stir in the flour and cook until lightly browned. Stir in the cup of stock you set aside earlier, adding it a little at a time to the roux to make a gravy. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until smooth. Transfer the gravy to the bean pot, stir in, add the salt, pepper and Cajun seasoning, and continue on a simmer, another 30 minutes, or until beans are fully tender. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve as is, or over hot, cooked rice.

Cook's Notes: May substitute 2 to 3 ham hocks for the ham bone. Okay to use frozen, drained, canned corn, or fresh corn that has been cooked, or omit. To make this into a soup, increase the water in the stock to cover the stock ingredients by double.

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Mary - This pot of beans sounds outstanding and is a must try as soon as we get a bone. I love the name you gave them, but being old school and in the South, you may want to replace "discarding the bone" with "toss the bone to the hound(s)." :-)

We are on the same wavelength --- I cooked pinto beans (soup beans as we call them in Kentucky) with my Thanksgiving hambone. We were pretty tired of leftovers and our supper of beans and cornbread was delicious.

Hi Mary, love ham & beans..everything looks so good... I posted about your famous pancake recipe today.. at my 2nd blog..My Fanciful Farm, I've made them several times and am never disapointed they are light & fluffy..as advertised..thanks Mary for sharing.. Merry Christmas....:)

In the first part of the recipe you are using the ham bone & vegetables to make a ham stock that you'll be using for the soup. Once that cooks, you'll strain out the veggies, BUT you need to reserve all that liquid to use for the soup, setting aside 1 cup to use at the end for the roux thickener to make them beans creamy.

Pick off any meat from the bone after it cooks to add back to the soup also.

It's there, I promise! "Strain, reserving the bone and stock; discard vegetables." The single cup that you are setting aside is to use for the gravy that I add to the beans, but you certainly use all of that good stock that you make. I guess I need to see if I can explain that better!!

Hey stranger!! Hope you're doing well. I haven't experimented yet but sure! The results aren't ever quite the same for me with the crockpot & you won't be doing the separate stock so the flavor will be a little different but I'd just dump in all in and go from there. With the crockpot I'd probably go with 6 cups of water.

I would say 5 to 6 hours on high, or 8 to 9 on low would probably do it. Just check it and see if it needs to go longer at the end since I haven't run this one through the CP test yet! Taste & adjust the seasonings there at the end too.

Hi Mary! Planning on letting the ham bone get a head start in the slow cooker, and will add black-eyed peas and let it go low and slow all day. Just trying to decide whether or not to presoak the BEP tonight?

If I don't have a ham bone, can I use a smoked ham hock? and/or a slice of smoked ham steak? Also, a general question? what kind of pork can I use for pulled pork sandwiches to cook in crock-pot? Thank you...Love all recipes...

Hi Renee & thanks so much!! You sure can - smoked ham hocks work perfectly fine here. Try to find one large one or two to three smaller ones that are pretty meaty. On the pulled pork, I like to use a pork butt or shoulder but you can even use a fresh pork picnic ham - that is a raw uncooked pork ham, not the kind that is fully cooked & smoked. I have several pulled pork recipes on here - just type pulled pork in that search box at the very upper right hand side of the page!

Hi Mary, I had a rather large ham bone and used the opportunity to make allot of stock. I think I have too much for 1lb. of beans. How much should I use for the beans aside from the cup for the gravy? Thanks!

Hi Geoff! Just use enough of the ham stock to cover the amount of beans that you have, plus another 1 to 2 inches, just like you did when you made the stock, reserving that one cup separate for the gravy. Then let them slowly stew down. Freeze any leftover stock you don't use!!

Hey Kathy! Sorry I missed your message - been feeling under the weather... I've done it both ways & while the age of the beans matters, with the smaller white beans I don't find that it makes much difference. If you use this recipe on a larger bean such as large limas, I would recommend a soak or quick boil method, just to speed up the cooking process.

Thanks for addressing this.I was hoping someone would comment on this. As I was reading through the instructions, the lack of soak (or not soak) stood out to me, so much that I went back to the beginning to see if I missed it or if the list of ingredients called for "pre-soaked" beans.In my experience, I always soak beans. I have never been able to cook beans correctly without a pre-soak. I don't know the "age" of the bean or how to tell for that matter. Even with smaller beans, I've had issues. So, soaking it up here in Florida to make sure our beans are nice and tasty.

I made this recipe in my crockpot. I put the beans & everything in at 11pm & let it cook on low all night using a ham bone from a 13 pound spiral cut ham we ate at Thanksgiving. I turned off the cp after about nine hours. The beans came out tasting really good with a rich tasting stock. Only thing is I think I put in too much water (I have a large crockpot). I removed 4 cups of stock & placed it in the freezer for future use.

I made this last weekend. The little northern beans still were not cooked through after 4 hours so next time I'll soak them over night. But I have to tell you this was even better the next day. Well worth the effort, thank you!

I made a pot of this soup this weekend and it was out of this world delicious!! Since I planned on canning the leftovers, I skipped thickening with a roux and smashed some of the beans instead to help thicken it and that worked out beautifully. Thank you for sharing your yummy recipe! :)

Great minds think alike! Although it's 70ish degrees in north Mississippi today, this is just what we had for lunch. I used Luck's canned mixed beans (pintos and great northern) that are preseasoned and cooked with pork and had it ready in no time. It was a good excuse to make cornbread too.

Never, never, ever Anonymous? Well, guess that's your recipe - not mine - because I add corn lol!! If you read the recipe, however, you will see that I added the ingredient "corn" as "optional" so that's up to the individual cook. Thanks for stopping by though! Please let me know when you start a recipe page and I'll be sure to repay the visit.

Hi Mary. We gave this recipe a try on this very cold snowy winter day. Followed the directions to the T. When it was done, it was very soupy....not thick at all. we added some cornstarch/milk and cooked it a little longer and it got a little better. any suggestions for next time? it tasted great just wasn't as thick as we hoped. thanks!!

I am guessing that it just needed a bit more time. Beans cooked low and slow go from that soupy stage to rich and thickened over time and you just have to wait it out. You'll see them transform when it does! For this recipe you need about 2 hours total after making the stock, though that's going to depend on the amount of liquid and the level of simmer. Once you make the bacon drippings gravy and add that in the last stage, it's generally about 30 minutes, but it could take a little more time. You want the simmer to be at a low bubble - not boiling, but where it's creating constant bubbles. Hope that helps!

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